Democratic Party chairman Howard Dean, who left the Episcopal Church in a dispute over the route of a bike path, and who once identified Job as his favorite book in the New Testament, has weighed in on the Biblical evidence on gay relationships.
“I haven’t seen gay marriage in the Bible once,” Dean said in the keynote address at a Democratic fundraiser at a Reno hotel-casino, perhaps not the best venue for a disquisition on traditional values.
AP has a story that will have gays, lesbians and their allies wondering whether they are about to be sacrificed to Democrats’ desire to cut into the evangelical vote. It includes this paragraph:
Rick Warren, a best-selling author and pastor at a Southern California church, is an example of an evangelical leader who is setting aside “those things that divide us” and doing things “that bring people together — things that really are in the Bible,” Dean said. He said those priorities include fighting poverty, global warming and the bloodshed in Darfur.
Warren, remember, is among Peter Akinola’s loudest cheerleaders, having written a brief profile of the Nigerian archbishop when Akinola was first named one of Time ‘s one hundred most influential people.
Warren noted that men like Akinola are “bright, biblical, courageous and willing to point out the inconsistencies, weaknesses and theological drift in Western churches.” without ever mentioning that Akinola lobbied for anti-gay legislation that had been condemned by the European Parliament, the U. S. State Department and every major human rights organization.